GrandeDavid
08-09-2006, 11:04 PM
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/NEWS01/608090367
If rapists seek revenge, she'll be ready
BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
MIDDLETOWN - When Cathy Lindsey's youngest son handed her a .380-caliber pistol a year ago, he gave her a word of advice.
"It boils down to one thing," said Charlie Keith, an Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq. "Kill or be killed. You have to fight for your life."
Twenty-three years after Lindsey was bound, tortured and raped by three men in her home while her three young children huddled behind a dresser, the 48-year-old grandmother is planning to do just that.
Two of Lindsey's three attackers will be released from prison Aug. 28 and are expected to return to Middletown, where they would live within a mile or two of Lindsey's home.
The homecoming for Richard Reed Jr., 53, and his cousin Robert Lee Hogsten, 48, comes five years early. They pleaded guilty to the 1983 rape in exchange for dismissing other felony charges.
Hogsten's brother, Edward, did not take a plea bargain. He was convicted at trial and was sentenced to 28 to 68 years. He recently was denied early release. The 50-year-old will be eligible for parole again in 2011.
Lindsey is terrified the men will make good on a threat she says they made years ago.
"They made it very clear if I told anyone, they would come back and kill me - and I told," she said.
Lindsey has fought over the years with petition drives, letters and appearances before parole board to keep the trio in prison.
Now, she'll be ready if anyone comes after her.
She's taken kick-boxing and self-defense classes. She practices her shooting skills almost weekly at a Sharonville target range. She and her husband, Michael, are applying for permits to carry a concealed weapon.
Michael Lindsey, a state prison guard, has stocked up on ammunition.
"This home is an arsenal," he said of their cottage on Stanley Street. "I sleep with a .45 under my pillow. I've been preparing for this for two years. I'm not a survivalist, but I'm going to do what I've got to do."
'THEY MADE ME BEG'
Lindsey was a single mother raising three kids, a part-time Laundromat clerk and a student at Miami University with a 4.0 average and plans to become a registered nurse.
Her dreams and sense of security vanished early Sept. 2, 1983.
About 2 a.m. Lindsey woke up on the sleeper sofa in her apartment on North Sutphin Avenue to find a man standing next to her.
He was naked except for a pillow case over his head with two eyeholes cut out, and he had a small black and white gun. Within minutes, two other men joined him. They told her they were members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Over the next four hours, Lindsey was bound with a plastic clothes line, burned with a cigarette lighter, threatened with a gun, then a knife. All the while the three men took turns sexually assaulting her.
"The worst part wasn't the rape. It was making me beg over and over and over. They put the gun down my throat and just made me beg - beg for my life, beg for mercy, beg them not to hurt my children," Lindsey recalled.
When it was over and the men were gone, Lindsey discovered that her phones had been ripped out of the wall. So she got dressed, threw a blanket around her children and drove herself to Middletown Regional Hospital.
Within three hours, Middletown police arrested Reed, who lived across the street from Lindsey with his wife, a son and twin daughters.
Detectives found damning evidence at Reed's house: a small black handgun with white grips, a pillow case with two holes cut from it, and clothesline.
Fingerprints from Lindsey's apartment and blood from the men linked them to the rape. Lindsey later identified Edward Hogsten from a police lineup.
All three men denied involvement in the crime.
NO RESTRICTIONS AFTER RELEASE
The men will have to register their addresses with police. And they may be ordered by a judge not to have any contact with Lindsey. But there's nothing Lindsey can do to keep the men from coming back to Middletown.
Prison officials say it's impossible to restrict where the men live, but they will have to report to a parole officer for two years. Reed and Robert Hogsten were ordered not to have any contact with Lindsey, they said. They have to register their addresses by law because they are sex offenders.
"There is nothing however that speaks to an actual city that they can or cannot live in," said prison spokeswoman Joellen Lyons.
Lindsey can't believe the men would be allowed back in her neighborhood. She learned this week that one of the men is planning to stay with relatives not even a quarter-mile from her home.
Lindsey has suffered nightmares of being snatched away by the trio and brutalized all over again - a flare-up of the post traumatic stress disorder she has suffered for 23 years. Lindsey is afraid to drive or leave her house alone, even to her job as a licensed practical nurse at a nursing home.
"You are always looking over your shoulder. You're always wondering who's following you, and now they are coming back. It's a constant thing," she said.
Local parole officials declined to comment.
"She has every right to be concerned. She needs to do what she needs to do to feel safe," Stacey Hall, director of the Butler County Rape Crisis Program. While a variety of laws can restrict where child sex offenders can live, there aren't as many clear restrictions for those who assault adults. Even though judges often issue restraining orders in adult rape cases, the issue remains a hot topic, Hall said.
The Lindseys are trying to get a protection order to keep Robert Hogsten and Reed away from them.
Lindsey also has considered changing her name, selling her house and disappearing with her family. But she says she shouldn't have to do that.
"It's so easy for someone to say 'Just move on,' " Lindsey said. "I cannot let these men destroy me. I can't - or they win."
E-mail [email protected]
If rapists seek revenge, she'll be ready
BY SHEILA MCLAUGHLIN | ENQUIRER STAFF WRITER
MIDDLETOWN - When Cathy Lindsey's youngest son handed her a .380-caliber pistol a year ago, he gave her a word of advice.
"It boils down to one thing," said Charlie Keith, an Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq. "Kill or be killed. You have to fight for your life."
Twenty-three years after Lindsey was bound, tortured and raped by three men in her home while her three young children huddled behind a dresser, the 48-year-old grandmother is planning to do just that.
Two of Lindsey's three attackers will be released from prison Aug. 28 and are expected to return to Middletown, where they would live within a mile or two of Lindsey's home.
The homecoming for Richard Reed Jr., 53, and his cousin Robert Lee Hogsten, 48, comes five years early. They pleaded guilty to the 1983 rape in exchange for dismissing other felony charges.
Hogsten's brother, Edward, did not take a plea bargain. He was convicted at trial and was sentenced to 28 to 68 years. He recently was denied early release. The 50-year-old will be eligible for parole again in 2011.
Lindsey is terrified the men will make good on a threat she says they made years ago.
"They made it very clear if I told anyone, they would come back and kill me - and I told," she said.
Lindsey has fought over the years with petition drives, letters and appearances before parole board to keep the trio in prison.
Now, she'll be ready if anyone comes after her.
She's taken kick-boxing and self-defense classes. She practices her shooting skills almost weekly at a Sharonville target range. She and her husband, Michael, are applying for permits to carry a concealed weapon.
Michael Lindsey, a state prison guard, has stocked up on ammunition.
"This home is an arsenal," he said of their cottage on Stanley Street. "I sleep with a .45 under my pillow. I've been preparing for this for two years. I'm not a survivalist, but I'm going to do what I've got to do."
'THEY MADE ME BEG'
Lindsey was a single mother raising three kids, a part-time Laundromat clerk and a student at Miami University with a 4.0 average and plans to become a registered nurse.
Her dreams and sense of security vanished early Sept. 2, 1983.
About 2 a.m. Lindsey woke up on the sleeper sofa in her apartment on North Sutphin Avenue to find a man standing next to her.
He was naked except for a pillow case over his head with two eyeholes cut out, and he had a small black and white gun. Within minutes, two other men joined him. They told her they were members of the Ku Klux Klan.
Over the next four hours, Lindsey was bound with a plastic clothes line, burned with a cigarette lighter, threatened with a gun, then a knife. All the while the three men took turns sexually assaulting her.
"The worst part wasn't the rape. It was making me beg over and over and over. They put the gun down my throat and just made me beg - beg for my life, beg for mercy, beg them not to hurt my children," Lindsey recalled.
When it was over and the men were gone, Lindsey discovered that her phones had been ripped out of the wall. So she got dressed, threw a blanket around her children and drove herself to Middletown Regional Hospital.
Within three hours, Middletown police arrested Reed, who lived across the street from Lindsey with his wife, a son and twin daughters.
Detectives found damning evidence at Reed's house: a small black handgun with white grips, a pillow case with two holes cut from it, and clothesline.
Fingerprints from Lindsey's apartment and blood from the men linked them to the rape. Lindsey later identified Edward Hogsten from a police lineup.
All three men denied involvement in the crime.
NO RESTRICTIONS AFTER RELEASE
The men will have to register their addresses with police. And they may be ordered by a judge not to have any contact with Lindsey. But there's nothing Lindsey can do to keep the men from coming back to Middletown.
Prison officials say it's impossible to restrict where the men live, but they will have to report to a parole officer for two years. Reed and Robert Hogsten were ordered not to have any contact with Lindsey, they said. They have to register their addresses by law because they are sex offenders.
"There is nothing however that speaks to an actual city that they can or cannot live in," said prison spokeswoman Joellen Lyons.
Lindsey can't believe the men would be allowed back in her neighborhood. She learned this week that one of the men is planning to stay with relatives not even a quarter-mile from her home.
Lindsey has suffered nightmares of being snatched away by the trio and brutalized all over again - a flare-up of the post traumatic stress disorder she has suffered for 23 years. Lindsey is afraid to drive or leave her house alone, even to her job as a licensed practical nurse at a nursing home.
"You are always looking over your shoulder. You're always wondering who's following you, and now they are coming back. It's a constant thing," she said.
Local parole officials declined to comment.
"She has every right to be concerned. She needs to do what she needs to do to feel safe," Stacey Hall, director of the Butler County Rape Crisis Program. While a variety of laws can restrict where child sex offenders can live, there aren't as many clear restrictions for those who assault adults. Even though judges often issue restraining orders in adult rape cases, the issue remains a hot topic, Hall said.
The Lindseys are trying to get a protection order to keep Robert Hogsten and Reed away from them.
Lindsey also has considered changing her name, selling her house and disappearing with her family. But she says she shouldn't have to do that.
"It's so easy for someone to say 'Just move on,' " Lindsey said. "I cannot let these men destroy me. I can't - or they win."
E-mail [email protected]